


You are the darkness that surrounds me (and I fear the night)

by VictorianLesbian



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: A sort of, Angst, Bitterness, F/F, Negative Thoughts, Pippa is not a pent-angel, Pippa is only human, TW:emotional abuse, TW:self-destructive thoughts, angst with positive ending, there is a drop of hope, tw: self-destructive behavior, tw:panic attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 15:02:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16663051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VictorianLesbian/pseuds/VictorianLesbian
Summary: Pippa always knew that Hecate was not like her. Lonely and dark, with big, black and shining eyes like beetles, a royal nose, the posture of a young adult with alabaster skin, like a fragile porcelain doll.And yet, she says to herself, not as fragile as she seems.Hecate swept her away. She humiliated and mocked her in front of the whole school. She broke her heart, swept away her trust without even a word.





	You are the darkness that surrounds me (and I fear the night)

**Author's Note:**

> This is 50% my personal story and 50% the Pippa's story  
> Thanks to Kaz for unconsciously extracting this from me  
> Thanks to Jean who patiently corrected mistakes  
> Thanks to Arwen who always knows how to appease my lexical terrors

Whoever said that to save a dark soul, a ray of light is needed, never had to deal with the night.  
Pippa Pentangle is seventeen years old and is unable to understand why her heart is so broken that it hurts in her chest.  
Pippa always knew that Hecate was not like her. Lonely and dark, with big, black and shining eyes like beetles, a royal nose, the posture of a young adult with alabaster skin, like a fragile porcelain doll.  
And yet, she says to herself, not as fragile as she seems.  
Hecate swept her away. She humiliated and mocked her in front of the whole school. She broke her heart, swept away her trust without even a word. But it takes months before the broken heart becomes something else entirely.  
There was intent in what Hecate did to her. Premeditation probably, how long, she doesn’t know.  
She had deluded herself to know Hecate, to understand her, to understand the mechanisms of her mind.  
Apparently she not.  
She doesn’t expect Hecate to treat her so coldly. She expects the reproach of her friends who repeat to her: _"We told you so"_ and _"She's a monster"_ and all the bad things that, from now on, she will not care anymore to deny.

Pippa returns home that summer, her eyes empty, her heart broken and the promise to herself that she will never fall in love with anyone again.  
Pippa will not say a word about how she feels, Hecate had the power to make her feel guilty about everything that happened.  
It's Pippa's fault that she insisted that they become friends, it was Pippa's fault that she fell in love with her best friend. It was entirely Pippa's fault, or at least these were the only words Hecate told Pippa to convince her not to look for her anymore.  
Hecate had never wanted her, but Pippa had been stubborn, she thought that her presence alone would fix that little girl with a sad and broken look in her eyes.  
She thought that only with her hugs she would replace the love that Hecate’s parents had not been able to provide her.  
She was wrong, Hecate did not need a pale substitute.  
She feels guilty for being just a silly girl who has never really understood Hecate's too fast-growing soul.  
Pippa hates herself for being so childish that she doesn’t understand that Hecate has never considered her a friend. At most a weight to carry around wherever she went. Pippa imposed her presence without ever realizing how much Hecate was embarrassed by her.  
Of course she had to be. With a family like Hecate’s, a spoiled, pink, silly child like Pippa, she was certainly not an adult girl, proud and responsible as a Hardbroom would have enjoyed spending her precious time.  
Pippa spends her summer in silence, the fear that only a word can reduce her to pieces, makes her lose her usual loquacity.  
Her parents don’t ask when she gets up from the table before dinner has ended. They don’t ask when she stays hours locked in her room staring at the ceiling. They don’t even ask when her grandmother, on a visit, asks Pippa where her black-haired friend is and she has to flee to her room, with panic in her chest and tears in her eyes.  
It takes her months before the panic attacks become less frequent. Pippa wakes up in the middle of the night with sobs that explode in her chest, tears on her cheeks and a painfully contracted throat.  
It happens during the day when she smells the scent of flowers, while she walks, while she breathes.  
She is no longer safe anywhere.  
It takes years but she becomes an adult and she ends up being once again the cheerful and carefree girl of the past.  
Only she really isn’t.  
Pippa builds a facade for the outside world and goes on.  
She specializes in vocal spells, she never wants to depend on a potion, especially because she knows that Hecate is continuing her studies in that field. Pippa closes her potion books with a lock in a trunk and buries it in the cellar.  
She can no longer bear the sight of them.  
She buys volumes of modern magic and buries herself inside the study of this new subject.  
She will be a new Pippa and everyone will esteem her for the innovations she will bring to the world of magic.  
She will never have to deal with rigid schemes, old constraints unable to evolve.

She vividly remembers the veneration she had for the statuette of Queen Mab sitting on a throne, regal and proud in Pippa’s mother's room.  
It was the most beautiful figurine that Pippa could remember from her childhood. At eight she was tall enough to grab her from the shelf, even when her mother had strictly forbidden her to play with it.  
In her little hands it had irreparably ended up breaking.  
Pippa had run from her grandmother, a whispered and secret spell between them and the statuette had been restored.  
Pippa had learned not to touch it ever again but the sense of guilt and the awareness of having to pretend that it never happened, had accompanied her throughout her life.  
Now Pippa feels like Queen Mab: externally perfect, internally irreparably broken.

As much as she hopes she will never again have to deal with Hecate, their world is terribly smaller than what Pippa believes, and news that accompanies the name of Hecate constantly reach her ears.  
But it is the sight of her, years later, much older, much more collected, regal and rigid that reminds her that she still feels like that stupid childish girl, in front of so much coldness.  
She feels all over again.  
The past years, the appearance of a mental stability swept away just to be in the same room, at the same conference, while Hecate speaks on stage like an elderly professor and all hail her wit, her spirit, her indomitable knowledge.  
Pippa only sees the girl who abandoned her, the one who wouldn’t have been able to do anything without a book. Attached to traditions, unnecessarily rigid, foolishly convinced that she was always right.  
Pippa would show everyone that she could invent something new, that she, too, will be hailed as Hecate is one day.  
Pippa forced herself to run away before becoming a petulant child, putting herself in an embarrassing situation in front of the whole magical community.  
She returns to Pentangle’s and throws the statue of Queen Mab on the hard floor.  
It is time that the lie she held throughout her life is finally revealed.  
Pippa still had a grudge after all these years.  
This is what she realizes, but is the grudge against her most oldest best friend who always keeps her at attention, ready to never let go.

She participates in conferences where everyone recognizes her intelligence, and her beauty is admired by anyone.  
Pippa writes essays and articles, she makes a name among the people who have value, but she is never happy.  
She still tries to talk to Hecate when they are together in the same place, but Hecate ignores her.  
Pippa hears her name spoken by someone at the back of the room. Whispered as if it were a dirty secret, with a giggle that makes her hair stand on the back of her neck. She sees that the other witch turns to Hecate and points her out subtly. She hears Hecate’s voice, strong and not at all impressed that says that she does not know any Pippa Pentangle.  
Pippa knows that Hecate can hear her. She knows because Hecate gives her a glacial look.  
Pippa is tired, so tired of Hecate's psychological tricks.  
Pippa is, to be exact, exhausted, embittered and absolutely furious.  
Feeling set aside by who she considered the most important person in her life. To be mocked, disowned, to hear that she is worth less than zero. She is not even worth remembering.  
She hates it. She hates Hecate, she hates every memory related to her and hates still feeling so influenced by her judgment, from her absolute lack of esteem for Pippa.  
She feels absolutely incapable of reacting to the psychological tricks that Hecate implements from time to time.  
Turns the other way when she enters a room. Pretends to not know her with important people. Putting on that irritating smile when someone speaks badly of Pippa's school.  
It's all too much. It's all overwhelming and unbearable.

She lives in the perennial effort of pleasure and pleases others, to prove to herself - probably more to Hecate - that everyone wants her.  
Pippa's face is on all the covers of the most famous witch weekly magazines. The high-sounding titles next to her name to enhance her beauty and grace. She participates in parties, events and conferences.  
An exhausting effort and a false smile on her face that leaves her without strength at the end of the day.  
And then, suddenly, she realizes she is no longer faithful to herself.  
Pippa lets people love her but she never returns the feeling. There is only the emptiness inside her heart.  
She ends up lying in the bed of a woman much older than her.  
A woman more broken than Hecate, more cruel.  
The same sharp cheekbones, the same long raven hair. And Pippa thinks that that's all she deserves from life.  
And every time she tells her that what is between them is over, Pippa gets hurt. She accepts the reproaches, she suffers her anger, and then falls into her arms all over again.  
Whenever she punishes her with sharp words Pippa sees Hecate's face hurling them at her.  
While her long thin fingers close around her throat, leaving her breathless, Pippa sees the face of Hecate finally overlapping the face of this woman.  
Pippa is a masochist, she realizes, but at least now she has the Hecate that she has always wanted, the one who will tell her to her face how worthless she is, that no matter how much she tries she will never be good enough for her.  
Pippa wants desperately to feel something, anything that isn’t the apathy in which her heart is enclosed.  
The words give her a terrible relief knowing that these were the words that Hecate had never been able to tell to Pippa in their youth, and that she was destined to listen, sooner or later.  
Pippa thinks that she can’t save every soul, some are just destined to get lost and she will do nothing to change things. Maybe she is destined to get lost herself, after all.

But when she steals the heart of a young witch, Pippa realizes that she has become everything she has always hated in Hecate: cold, cruel, sarcastic.  
And she pours all this on this young and unaware girl.  
Whoever said that to heal a broken person, a good soul is needed, is mistaken.  
Broken people break good people, they trample them, mock them and make them like themself. Pippa hates herself for what she has become.  
Petty and unable to love.  
Pippa realizes that before she can love again, she will have to cure herself. Only then, she will be able, again, to love someone as deserved.

All that remains for her is to start over again.  
Pippa gets back on her feet, devotes herself to her school. She becomes inclusive, she feels again like that sunny child who could not stand injustice and who was able to see good in other human beings.  
Pippa becomes attached to her students, she loves them tenderly as only a mother could be. She doesn’t miss the lack of having children, she does not regret her choices, she doesn’t blame herself for the dreams that she had as a child that she couldn’t achieve despite everything.  
They are her salvation, and for the first time in years she feels warm, confident, happy.  
She feels surrounded by affection and respect.  
Her school keeps her mind sane and she manages to sleep again at night; no more nightmares, no more panic attacks, no self-pity.  
She wakes up in the morning with a purpose and this is enough to keep going.

When there is a chance to go to Cackle’s for the first time, Pippa decides to take the opportunity to show everyone that she is of sound mind now, an adult who is able to function.  
That she will not behave like a child, that she will be what her students can identify as a good example.  
Only she is not.  
When she sees Hecate for the first time she realizes she still holds a grudge.  
She turns touchy and cruel within an instant.  
She identifies with Mildred. Continuously humiliated by Hecate, constantly put aside, ignored. Her duty is to take the girl away from the toxic presence of Hecate, to bring her into a better environment, where Mildred doesn’t grow up empty and with the risk of making Pippa’s own mistakes as an adult.  
Mildred haunts her, but by the end of the day, she realizes that the one to be saved is only herself.  
She, and Hecate who she had hated all this time.  
Their hug is like a soothing balm, a patch that magically sews a thirty year long wound. And that's when Pippa recognizes that everything she has always believed, what she was forced herself to feel, collapses like a house of cards under the most feeble breeze.

She cries into her pillow when she returns to Pentangle’s that night, realizes that it wasn’t hate that pushed her actions. All she had always wanted was just Hecate’s love.  
She feels, for the first time, like a snowdrop that pierces the thick layer of snow to look for the warmth of the sun after a particularly long winter. There is relief and a sense of tranquility within her that Pippa had never experienced in her adult life.  
She swallows her fears, her silly heart beating hard in her chest, and her silly grudges are gone to make room for the feeling that should have guided her throughout her life.  
The next day, Pippa decides to mirror Hecate.  
After all, she thinks, maybe two souls who walk alone in the dark can learn to cross it together.


End file.
